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Unhappy anniversary
Someone has just mentioned to me that it’s Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun’s 15th anniversary this week. Apart from that making me feel incredibly old it also makes me feel sad for the fact that real-time strategies are basically dead now. There’s Starcraft II I know, but I’ve never really liked Blizzard’s ultra serious/ultra nerdy style of games and I much prefer the cheesy fun of Command & Conquer.

Considering the PC is supposed to be on a high at the moment I think it’s a real shame that real-time strategies haven’t come back into the mainstream. I know there must be indie games and stuff but at the time Command & Conquer was the biggest PC game around. Can you imagine that happening now?!

Trouble is even if EA does try again it’ll just be another free-to-play flop. So I salute you Tiberan Sun, I spend hundreds of hours playing you back in the day and I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance to again within anything similar. Or maybe I should be so pessimistic, if survival horror can come back why not real-time strategy!IBU

The worries within
There is one downside to the resurgence of survival horror and it’s that I worry that The Evil Within is going to end up being edge out by the big names of Alien and Silent Hill. Shinji Mikami is one of my favourite developers but to be honest I’ve not been that impressed by what I’ve seen of The Evil Within so far and GC’s preview was a little lukewarm for my liking.

As another reader has pointed out the problem seems to be that it’s not going full horror and that it’s a bit of an awkward mash-up of Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill. Mikami is great at a lot of things but storytelling isn’t really one of them and the whole set-up, style of dialogue, and voice acting seems far too cheesy and silly to me; for something that’s supposed to be a more serious kind of horro game. What doesn’t GC think? I really hope I’m worrying unnecessarily.Lance

GC: Those are reasonable concerns, let’s put it that way.

Guilty consumer
I actually feel pretty guilty about how much I’m looking forward to Destiny. Not in the sense that I’ve fallen for the hype of a mega budget game but because I’d actually love for them to release as many expansions as problem. I’d happily shell out for one that added space battles (Halo: Reach style) and sword-fighting (maybe a third person view for that?) Heck, I’d pay for more planets too, bigger vehicles. Basically I’m super sold on the whole concept and I hope it expands sooner rather than later.

I’m just a sucker aren’t I? I know it but… Destiny just seems like the dream game to me and I want to make it as close as perfect as possible.Discotheque

Money well spent?
Thanks to everyone that replied to my email about Twitch and Amazon. I guess a little buy now link does make total sense in a way, although paying $1 billion for it seems a bit over-the-top. I mean surely most people, if they buy online, buy from Amazon already anyway?

I didn’t know they own IMDB either, so that’s interesting. I guess I’m just amazed at the amount of money that gets thrown around for ideas that seems so basic and easy to copy (assuming you have the money, which obviously someone like Amazon does). It’s worse with apps and things but I don’t really see who Amazon is competing with in the online business.

I mean GAME I guess, a bit, but who other than hardcore gamers are going to think of going there? And most gamers hate GAME anyway so that must be a niche of a niche. It ultimately doesn’t matter of course. If it causes a 1% boost in Amazon profits that’s still going to be millions anyway, but I just can’t help think what else you could do with a $1 billion.John Roe

Proper hard
I don’t have a problem with Lords Of The Fallen being a clone of Dark Souls. Whether it’s good or bad it’ll have to stand on its own merits and I’d much rather have a developer trying to create their own version of From’s classic than another shooter or Assassin’s Creed sequel. I think they could have at least shaken up the setting a bit, I mean it looks exactly like Dark Souls, but I guess they want everyone to think of it as almost an unofficial next gen version.

I think the guy you interviewed showed some obvious enthusiasm and I’d like to see a lot more ‘challenging’ games, as he puts it, in every genre. The reason I like Dark Souls is that it made a stand against hand-holding and obsessing over whether people would find a game too hard or not understanding what to do. Both these are integral to enjoying a good game as far as I’m concerned and I’m glad to see that some developers still think so.

Just turning up the difficultly isn’t the same thing, because all that usually is is increasingly the hit points of an enemy or making them supernaturally good shoots. A proper hard game needs to be carefully designed that way from the start, and hopefull Lords Of The Fallen releases that.Beaker

The right kind of special
Metro 2033 seems a pretty weird kind of game to put that much effort into remaking, but I guess the developer must really like the series so who am I to stop them. For me those these ‘remasters’ are taking the wrong approach. I don’t want to see an old game trying to pretend it’s a modern one. According to the Metro review the graphics look new but the animation, artificial intelligence, and presumably level design is all as out of date as ever.

These companies don’t seem to realise that games, just like movies, are of their time and changing some of the visuals and nothing else just doesn’t work. My favourite remake is still Zelda: Ocarina Of Time 3D. The game subtly improves some of the graphics, like the model for Link, but it still looks pretty much as you remember – just tided up enough to match your memories.

If it was some total conversion like Metro 2033 seems to be you’d suddenly have these super detailed characters running around these relatively small and sparsely designed little areas. But then if you changed them too it’d start to become a different game entirely.

It’s like the difference between the Blade Runner special edition (great and subtle) and the Star Wars special editions (ham-fisted and inconsistent).Gadfly

Credit due
Nintendo get so much stick from some people but yet again we see that when they turn their hand to something the end result is not only better than most other companies but also more consumer friendly. These Mario Kart 8 downloads sound great and I would have no problem at all buying several more for that price.

I know they’re terrible at online, but can you imagine an Xbox Live style service for Nintendo consoles? All that swearing and bullying is the absolute opposite of what Nintendo is all about. It’s not them that are stopping their consoles from having decent online, it’s the gamers!

Obviously they messed up the Wii U launch but I’ve been happy with pretty much everything they’ve done so far this year and definitely more impressed than I have been with Microsoft. Especially after their boring Gamescom and Tomb Raider-gate. Not that it has to be a battle you know, but I do wish people would praise companies when they do something right instead of just criticising them.Vita-Man

Labelphobia
Maybe it’s just me but does anyone else get tired of the Internet’s more pretentious voices claiming that we shouldn’t use the word ‘gamer’. What on earth is wrong such a simple, unambiguous term? It simple means someone that plays games, with the implication that it’s one of their favourite hobbies. It’s essentially just short-hand for video game fan, just as you would say movie buff or music fan. Except movier and musicer doesn’t really work so they have to type out two words instead of our two.

I really can’t imagine anything more inoffensive as a term and yet some people seem to hate it for reasons they never seem able to explain. I mean, do you get upset when someone calls you a foodie? Or is this a Star Trek thing like where they don’t like being called Trekkies but do like Trekker (or is it the other way round?). I really don’t understand.Cranston

This week’s Hot Topic
The subject for this weekend’s Inbox is what new games are you playing to get this autumn and Christmas?

With Gamescom over (although we’ve still got a few more weeks worth of write-ups to go) there are now no more major games expos left this year, and in general there’s unlikely to be any more previews of games due out in 2014. So the question is: what games have you been convinced to buy?

Between now and the end of the year what new (i.e. released within that same period) games do you intend to buy or ask for as presents? What has influenced your decision and has your opinion of those games changed over time? Also, will you be buying a new console or PC during that time, and why?